Prologue and Trailer inside! "Sonny, I need your help." "What do you want Chad?" "I want you to make me... normal." "You're serious? Why?" "The girl I like is into down-to-Earth guys, so I've got to be that guy." xPERMANENT HIATUSx

Yay! Chapter two is here! And don't you just love that chapter title? ;) Anyway, get comfortable. This is the longest chapter I've ever written at exactly 4, 001 words without the author's notes. Enjoy. :)

Chapter Two: No One Wants To Date a Neanderthal

Chad's Point of View

"Gah! What the heck are you wearing?"

Sonny glared at me and smoothed out her light blue dress that should've been on someone from the fifties, and not on any person seen with Chad Dylan Cooper. "It's a waitress' uniform. I'm using it for today's lesson."

My eyebrows shot up and I couldn't help but grimace. What was she going to make me do? I knew for a fact that normal people did not dress up in hideous outfits like that. Well, I mean, it didn't look that bad on her, but still. No self-respecting kid from the nineties should be wearing something their parents probably wore.

Sonny tugged on the end of her messy ponytail and eyed me patiently. She cleared her throat softly. "I know my outfit isn't up to Chad Dylan Cooper's standards, but are you going to let me come in?"

Whoops. I forgot about that minor detail. "Huh? Oh, sure, come in." Stepping aside and out of the way, I let Sonny walk by me and come into my house.

She glanced around the entryway and the living room right off the door while I shut the door behind her. "Wow… I never pictured your house to be so… modest. It's nice. Very homey…"

"Yeah, well we try to live like we're at the bottom even though we're at the top because of me."

Sonny smirked and did a pretty bad job stifling a laugh. What was so funny? "That's a Jonas Brothers quote, you know."

Ugh! From then on, I was no longer going to listen to my sister ever again. If she was going on again about the Jonas Brothers, I'd just tune her out. Heck, if the stove was supposedly on fire and she was screaming at me to get a fire extinguisher (because the girl can't cook to save her life), I'd just drop and roll right out of the house. Because all my little sister, Delilah, ever did, was either get me into trouble, or embarrass me somehow.

"I have a little sister," I grumbled, pushing past Sonny and plopping down on a tan recliner in the living room.

Sonny followed after me. "Really, how old is she?"

"Unfortunately, she's not old enough to move out of the house yet." I was already planning a party for when she would finally leave for college.

One of Sonny's eyebrows quirked up and her pink lips turned down into a frown.

Rolling my eyes, I replied unenthusiastically that Delilah was seventeen.

Sonny smiled. "Huh. She's as old as I am." She shook her head back and forth and lowered her eyelids covering up her chocolate brown eyes. "Anyway, let's get to work." Head obviously clear now, Sonny stood in front of me with her hands on her hips. Let the bossing around of Chad Dylan Cooper begin. "Stand up, please."

I reluctantly obeyed after she nearly burned a hole in my head with her glare. Apparently, the soft and kind look to her eyes was only a disguise to hide the deadly lasers underneath.

"Alright, so what you're going to say when you first go up to her is, 'hi, I'm Chad. I've noticed you around here before and wanted to say hi.' Got it?"

"Do I have to say that?" I complained. I mean, it was so run-of-the-mill and ordinary. Wasn't I supposed to be catching her attention and standing out in the crowd for her?

Sonny nodded and brushed her bangs back into place. (When she'd first come to Hollywood, she'd had shorter bangs, but over the year and a half that she had been here, she'd grown them out an inch or so longer. They looked nice, I'd give her that)

"Yes, Chad, I think sticking to something basic is good for you to start with."

"But that's so boring. Forget it. I am not saying hi like that! What kind of pickup line is that anyway? I don't want to start out with something simple and generic. I'm Chad Dylan Cooper; I should be saying something more eye catching." And to think I was trusting this girl to get me my dream girl without embarrassing me.

Sonny's upper lip curled up in disgust. "Oh jeez, Chad, a girl like her isn't going to like pickup lines. We're sticking with simple, normal boy."

Sonny stood in silence for about five seconds, staring at me before she heaved a sigh of defeat. "Fine, let's hear a few."

I knew she would want to hear them. They were incredibly good and original. "I must be a snowflake because I've fallen for you," I started, speaking to Sonny as though I were actually in love with her. Yeah right!

Her eyes widened and she stuck a single finger down her throat and pretended to gag. Well! I liked it.

Okay, maybe the next one she could appreciate. "Every time I see you my heart races, and I'm hoping to win," I said confidently.

This time all she did was roll her eyes up and look at the ceiling in a "why me?" fashion. For a good girl, she sure could be mean. To me, anyway.

"You spend so much time in my dreams I should really start charging you rent," I tried with less feeling, already knowing Sonny wouldn't be able to appreciate this one either.

Sonny just stared at me for a second before finally nodding her head slowly. "Okay, yeah, definitely no pickup lines for you."

"What? But I-"

"No buts, Cooper. This is for your own good, trust me. We'll just leave it at this: you should stick to the basics and acting. Now," Sonny continued talking over my protests. I finally gave up, realizing how stubborn she really was and that for once I was not going to get my own way. It was so annoying and yet… slightly endearing at the same time that she was that way. "Speaking of the basics, let's start with the basics of manners."

The front door clicked open at that moment and in walked my freaky, as-annoying-as-they-come, seventeen year old sister, Delilah.

"Hey, I'm home!" She walked into the living room but stopped when she saw Sonny. A smile spread across her face with the speed of a wild fire. "Oh, hey, I didn't know we had company. Hi, I'm Delilah." She waved at Sonny from across the medium-sized room.

"Hi, I'm Sonny. It's nice to meet you." She waved back at Delilah.

Delilah looked right at me and smirked. "So you finally got the guts to ask her out, huh?"

Why that little… "No, the girl I'm going to ask out is Amy. Not Sonny." I clarified, exasperated. How hard was it to remember?

Delilah rolled her blue eyes and snickered. "Whatever you say, Charles. Have fun on the 'Rollercoaster of Denial and Falsehoods.'"

That was it! If I had to endure actually listening to Sonny Munroe, than I did not want my sister there to witness it, or make it even more impossibly embarrassing.

"Delilah, I think it's time you leave, now," I stated bluntly. I suppose I could've said "beat it, kid" instead, but somehow it seemed too mean. Weird, seeing as how nothing should've seemed too mean when it came to Delilah. Dang it, Sonny's niceness was already rubbing off on me!

She shrugged lightly and turned for the staircase. "Whatever. I'm calling Joey. And FYI, mom and dad'll be home in an hour."

Great, Delly, that was five seconds of my life, I'll never get back.

Sonny smiled smugly at me. Like she enjoyed my humiliation in having someone find out my real first name isn't actually Chad. "Your real name is Charles Dylan Cooper?"

I sighed, rolling my eyes up to the ceiling (I felt like I'd been doing that a lot lately). "Yes," I grumbled.

Sonny started laughing so hard I would've been afraid she would stop breathing if I wasn't so ticked off at her and my sister and… well, pretty much the entire world.

"It's not that funny!" I shouted. She was the only girl in the entire world who would dare to actually laugh at me in a mocking way. And once again, it was annoying, yet slightly endearing. But mostly annoying.

"Okay… Okay, I'm sorry," she gasped, clutching her sides. "It's just… I suppose I can kind of see how Chad might've worked better for a Hollywood name."

"Oh, well, not everyone's name is as 'great' as your name. What is your middle name anyway?"

Her smile instantly faded and she averted her eyes down to her black heels with little blue bows on the ends. "Uh… I'd rather not say."

"Hey, if I have to have you know what my real name is, I need some leverage over you too. Now let's hear it, Ali," I provoked.

Sonny took a deep breath and looked me right in the eye. "Fine. My middle name is Theresa."

Hmm… Not too bad. Allison Theresa- Wait a minute! Oh this was great leverage!

"Can we please just agree to call each other Sonny and Chad in public and move on with our lives?" she questioned, visibly embarrassed.

"Okay sure, but… really? 'ATM?'" Oh come on! Even you have to admit it's a little bit funny. I could get away with having the initials for the 'Center for Disease Control' because so far in my life, the only person to mention that was Sonny (of course). But everyone would pick up on 'ATM.' Ha!

Sonny's pale arms crossed over her chest as her frown became more pronounced. "My parents hadn't slept in about four days so they weren't really thinking it through when they decided to name me after both my grandmothers. Now can we please just leave it at that?" she snapped.

"Whatever you say, teach," I said cockily. I may not mention it to anyone in public, but in private, Sonny would never live this down. Hehehe.

Her sparkly brown eyes rolled (What was it with the eye rolling today?) and a quick, exasperated breath escaped her mouth. "Alright, fine, let's just get started. Now, where's your dining room?"

I pointed to the room right next to the one we were in and Sonny led the way, stopping in front of one of the chairs.

"Have a seat," she said sweetly.

I pulled out a chair and sat down, looking at Sonny expectantly.

"Now, pretend that we're in a restaurant, and you're on a date with Amy." Sonny put her hands on the top of the seat across from me and waved. "Here's Amy. And I am your waitress."

"Oh great, because I'm actually getting pretty hungry. I don't suppose you know how to make cheesecake, do you?" I asked, leaning back a little in my chair. Now I could get used to these kinds of lessons.

Sonny shook her head. "No, Chad, I'm not really your waitress. We're just going to pretend I am so we can practice manners," she explained.

I made a face. "Well than what's the point of your dorky getup? Couldn't you just 'pretend' to look like a waitress?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I like getting into character. Now stop changing the subject. We only have so much time to do this. Alright, now let's start with 'please,'" Sonny said cheerfully.

"Oh please," I said, rolling my eyes. I think I know enough about the basics of manners without her to tell me.

Her smile faded, though it looked like she tried to keep it. "No, I didn't mean like that. Now, let's say," she started, rushing into place to stand at the end of the table near my seat. "that you and Amy have both drunk over half of your drinks and now-"

"Wait!" I interjected.

"What?" she snapped back, her ponytail swishing with the sudden jerk of her head.

I paused for a moment. "What kind of drinks are we having?"

I almost started laughing when she got that exasperated look on her face. Oh how I loved teasing her. It was just so easy to get a reaction.

"You're having Coke. Now-"

"I don't really like Coke."

"Then you're having Root Beer!"

Hehehe. See? Shrugging, I gave her an innocent look. "Okay."

Sonny raked a hand through her glossy, brown hair (Okay, so now I'm one of those guys who are really into girls' hair. I'm Chad Dylan Cooper and if I want to switch from being a lip guy to a hair guy in the same day, then I will) and sighed. "Alright, so then your waitress comes by and says…" Sonny put on a big smile and placed her hands on her hips. "Are you all enjoying your food? Can I get you anything else?"

I raised an eyebrow. Was she serious? Why couldn't she just be one of those normal tutors who simply tell you what to do and then say there's a quiz on Friday?

"Then you would say-" Sonny crouched down next to my chair. "'Yes, could you please refill our drinks for us?'" she asked in a really deep voice. I so did not sound like that!

She sprang back up to a standing position and faced me again. "Sure, I'll be right back with your drinks," Sonny said, adopting her regular voice again (Thank goodness). Clasping her hands together, Sonny gave me a serious look. "Got it? When you're asking for something, no matter what it is, you say please."

"Yeah, got it, but I don't get what this has to do with me winning Amy over. Could you please explain it to me?" I over exaggerated the word "please" just to be sure that she could tell I was catching on. …And to annoy her.

"I'm teaching you this because girls love manners. No one wants to date a Neanderthal who doesn't even know how to say 'please' and 'thank you.' Especially girls like Amy and… well, me. We love guys who use manners. Trust me. Amy will like you even more," she assured me with a quick nod.

Well… if girls like her liked that sort of thing, what was the harm? But I still didn't get why she had to teach me like this. "Fine, but couldn't you just tell me what to do and what not to do instead of making me look at you in a hideous fifties dress while you teach me?" Her dress really wasn't that bad, so I don't even know why I kept making it seem like it was.

Sonny sighed and looked at me for a minute. "So it really isn't helping you learn visually at all? My mom suggested that I teach in a more visual way to engrain it in your head, but if it isn't working then…"

"Hold on… You told your mom?" I asked incredulously.

She simply waved it off. "Oh it's no big deal. She won't tell anyone. And I needed the advice for… lesson plans, so to speak. This was a little short notice," Sonny reminded me.

"Fine," I agreed. "But you can't tell anyone else or the deal's off, and I'll tell everyone your middle name is Theresa," I threatened. What? I needed to let her know that I meant business when it came to keeping our little arrangement on the down low.

"Fine then, Charles. Let's just get back to work." Sonny pulled out the chair next to me and sat down, finally giving up on the waitress thing. "So, another thing is, instead of saying 'no' or 'nah' when someone asks you if you want something, instead you should say 'no thank you.' It's classier and it's more polite, especially if you're talking to adults," she spoke with a business-like tone.

Easy enough so far. Say 'please' when you want something, 'girls don't like Neanderthals,' use 'no thank you' instead of no… This was easy.

Sonny tapped her chin in thought. "Oh, and instead of answering a question with 'yeah,' use 'yes.' Again, it's just classier. That one doesn't matter quite as much, but it's a good habit to get into when you're talking to adults or speaking at a press conference even."

While she was talking, in the back of my mind I was wondering how many more of these "lessons" we were going to have to go through. I really didn't want to spend too much time… working. Hopefully this would be a quick process.

Sonny's chatter brought me back to the real world as she started in on also remembering to say "excuse me" when you need to get by someone. Yeah, yeah, yeah, this was great and all, but couldn't we get on with some of the more interesting things?

"Also, I think we should go over some more chivalrous things that I think you should start trying to apply to your life," she said seriously, taking the blue hair elastic in her hair out and shaking her hair out around her shoulders.

"Wait. 'Chivalrous things'?" What do you mean by that? I thought chivalry was supposed to be dead? I also thought that you were supposed to be teaching me how to be normal, not shaping me into the perfect, cookie-cutter image every girl dreams of." I paused as I thought that over. Actually… that's not such a bad idea. "On second thought, that doesn't sound so bad…"

Even I knew she was just saying that so I would agree to learning that stuff too. It worked… Because really… who else could pull off bringing something like chivalry back? No one.

"Fine, what do I have to do?"

Sitting up straighter in her chair, she suddenly became even more animated (if that's even possible). "Okay, so there's always the ladies first rule. Open doors for Amy and let her walk through first." Sonny shot me a look.

Honestly, did she really think I was that full of myself? I know how to let other people go before me. I just, you know, choose not to pretty much all the time. How hard could it be to change now?

"And hardly any one even thinks of this one anymore but I like the idea of it. I got it from an older book I was reading. You see, when you and Amy are walking on the sidewalk, you should always walk on the outside next to the street. That way, if there's like a bunch of puddles or something on the road, and a car drives by, you'll get splashed with water instead of Amy. Or like if she falls or something, she won't fall into the road."

"But wait, I don't want to get splashed either. Do you know how expensive my clothes are?" I gestured to my shirt.

"No, and no one else really cares Chad. That can be our next lesson," she said, looking like she was really only thinking out loud.

"Well I care. I cannot afford to get some of these clothes wet."

"Chad, this is all hypothetical, okay? And you know you're just going to have to suck it up and be the gentleman. Alright, what else is there? I think that's pretty much it. I heard somewhere that another example would be when you hear a woman crying for help, you drop everything and help her. But, I think we'll just stick with what we've got, so I think that's just about it for the first lesson." She pushed back from the table and smoothed down her dress again.

"Alright. This'll be easy," I said confidently.

Sonny laughed. (At me. That never used to happen to me before she came here. Now it was practically an annoying routine) "You may say that now, but the hard part will be actually applying this to your everyday life and remembering to. But trust me when I say that you will be forced to follow these rules all the time."

Oh, yeah right. What was she going to do? Follow me around all the time? Surely the people at Chuckle City didn't have that much free time.

Sonny made a "V" with her index and middle finger and pointed to her own eyes and then pointed to me. "Because I will be watching you," she warned in a menacing voice.

I couldn't help but lean farther away from her in my chair. "Uh, right… I'll keep that in mind." I slid out of my seat and started walking towards the front door as a hint for ATM to leave.

"Good," she said, following after me. "And next time we'll work on your clothes."

"What's wrong with my clothes?" After opening the door smoothly, I spun around to face her again. Seriously, I don't think you would find anyone else with better style than me, so why change perfection?

"Well…" Sonny wrinkled her eyebrows and nose as she looked me up and down. "It's just that…" She waved it off with her hand and walked across the threshold, glancing back at me. "We'll talk about it tomorrow. Same time and place?"

"Wait, seriously, Sonny, there is nothing wrong with how I dress! What's wrong with how I dress?" I called out to her back as she skipped down the driveway to her old, beat-up, red truck.

"See you tomorrow!" was her only response. She hopped into her truck and started the engine.

"No, Sonny, you cannot just tell me something like that and leave me hanging! Sonny!"

Said person waved, one finger at a time, mockingly. "Bye, Chad." And with that, she drove off out of sight down the street, leaving me to wonder what she could possibly be talking about. My wardrobe was perfect.

Sighing, I walked back inside and shut the door right as Delilah was suddenly walking by me to the kitchen.

"It's no wonder you need a tutor on how to be a normal person," she observed, smirking.

Ugh, this whole tutor thing was already causing me trouble. But, I just had to keep reminding myself that this was all for my dream girl. Only for her. And this would be worth it. I hoped…

Wow that was a long chapter... I hope you guys liked it. I'm still struggling a little to keep Chad in character and write everything in his perspective. He's just so complicated. Anyway, thanks for reading and thank you for all the awesome reviews you've been giving this. I appreciate it all. Happy Tuesday! :)

--UPDATE - April 29, 2010--I'm so sorry, but this story is on permanent hiatus now. So early on in the story too. :-(Thank you for reading, and if you want to know why I was so cryptic about who the girl was, PM me and I'll tell you.

The author would like to thank you for your continued support. Your review has been posted.